Running We Will Not Escape This
by Devi Lethe
Summary: Peter Hale lived in Lydia Martin, and when she pushed him out with the blood of his nephew and a little moonlight, he left splinters. Or at least, that's what she desperately, uselessly hopes happened, because if he didn't-


It's not obvious (she makes damn sure of that), but it is there and she can't for the life of her - ha fucking ha - shake it.

Here's how it starts, or the moment she becomes aware. Jackson tosses an offhand insult at Stiles. It's not special. In fact, it's sub par, and she cocks her head, considering whether to cut in with a rejoinder or whether to ignore the entire conversation.

That's it. Outwardly, her face registers a split second of the panic rampaging through her before her instincts kick in and the expression is buried so far under nonchalance it might never have existed. (Buried far, far deeper than he ever was.)

In that moment, Lydia Martin is two people. She's the girl who scans the table to be sure no one noticed her slip, a catty reply rolling effortlessly off her tongue (his tongue can be just as sharp). She's also the girl who cocks her head exactly like _Peter fucking Hale_ and it's quite possibly the most petrified she's ever been.

She cocks her head like Peter Hale and she doesn't know if she stole it from him or if he stole it from her but she knows in her bones they do it the exact same way.

If she locks herself in the girl's bathroom and stares at herself in the mirror for an indeterminate amount of time, well, that's really not anyone's business but hers.

.

.

.

Here's the problem. While Peter was worming his devious little way into her psyche, she was getting pulled deeper into his. Every fear he ferreted out, every happy note he struck, he only opened himself up more. The man lived in her skin, in her mind. He thrummed in her blood, and for all the scientific and highly logical theories she's managed to come up with concerning that particularly horrific experience, none of it changes the fact of what happened.

Peter Hale lived in Lydia Martin, and when she pushed him out with the blood of his nephew and a little moonlight, he left splinters. Or at least, that's what she desperately, uselessly hopes happened, because if he didn't —

If he didn't, then they are far more alike than she's ready to admit.

It isn't just the way she cocks her head. It's the way his eyes flick to whoever is annoying him most without moving his head. It's the way he smiles when he's annoyed and about to deliver a scathing remark. It's the way she waits an extra second before answering to stress how much of an effort it is to deal with stupidity of this caliber. They're _alike_.

She's fairly certain she'd prefer to claw her own eyes out than acknowledge any of it, so when she cocks her head, she tips it a bit farther than she'd like. When she answers, she waits an extra extra second to be sure the pause is longer than the one he'd make in her place. (She tries to. She knows she forgets.)

But sometimes, when she looks at him across the remains of the Hale living room, she sees someone familiar, and she can't decide if she wants to be sick or edge closer.

(She's pathetic.)

.

.

.

This is her secret: she gets it. He needed something, and she was a tool. It's not a new theory. She isn't the first person to be used by someone else. Hell, she's used plenty of people to get what she wants starting with her parents and eventually spreading to encompass everyone and everything she comes in contact with. When Lydia meets someone new, appraisal is the first order of business and generally speaking, altruism is not her motivation.

The only altruistic thing she's ever done was for Jackson, and even that was sullied. Tarnished because half the reason she was so desperate to help was to take back her power. (She is _not_ helpless. She is _not_.)

She can even admit, alone, in the dark, that if their positions had been reversed, she might have done the same. Maybe. She might have kissed him, too, if she wanted, or if she thought it would help.

(She still dreams of brown hair and blue eyes and a body that curves like the moon to catch her lips.)

(She wants to ask if he dreams, too, but can't.)

(Won't.)

(_Can't_.)

.

.

.

Sometimes she'll catch him looking at her with something in his eyes. Something naked, and raw. Something that can be wounded. Something that can be healed.

And god help her, she wants to cut him deeper. Every time she catches it staring at her she wants to get her nails in him and tear it to shreds. She wants to make him bleed and shiver and sob and laugh and dream and hope and she wants to wreck Peter Hale like he wrecked her. She wants to put him back in the ground and bury him alive. She wants his screams echoing up from the heart of the earth.

When he sees her looking, he smirks, and she wants to carve the lips off his face.

That's something she stole from him, or something he left with her. There's a bloodthirsty edge to her world that would put a serial killer to shame. She could make Jeffrey Dahmer blush with her private horror show and it only makes her want it more. She wants the heat of blood running through her fingers and the taste of copper on her tongue. Wants it. Remembers it.

Because Peter remembers what those things are like, and she gets a little closer to being Peter Hale every day.

She hates that fact, but not as much as she should, or not the right way. She hates the wrong parts. It's not what she's becoming, it's that it was him who set her on the path.

Lydia Martin is on the slippery slope to psychopathy and she's upset about it because it means someone else got to her. No need to be a Rhode scholar to puzzle out what's wrong with that scenario.

.

.

.

She screws it all up over nothing. That's the worst part, in her mind. Not that she makes an error (although that's bad enough) but that it's such a stupid one.

It's just a smile, carelessly tossed in his direction to convey just how deeply useless he is, but it's a fatal error because it's _his smile_.

His breath is just a hiss, one that she hears across the room and over the din, their eyes locked together and she sees the exact moment when he knows that _she know_s it's his smile.

His laugh sounds like victory and she runs — flees with a hastily mumbled excuse (brilliant, no doubt, because she's still Lydia Martin) and no real plan except to get away, get distance, before he can get to her (again).

She spends the night awake and petrified, expecting him to show up any minute, pressing his advantage while it's fresh.

When he doesn't show, and she hates him even more, because he's good enough to get to her outside her skin, too.

.

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He doesn't come for her, doesn't follow her home from school, or corner her in the parking lot. After a week she even starts to make it easy for him, taking the long way, going down side streets. She almost goes through the woods, but she's not desperate. She's _not_. She has her dignity.

She's Lydia fucking Martin and she will not beg.

Pack meetings are a kind of dance, their movements as precise as if they'd practiced for weeks. He looks, she looks away. She moves, he encroaches on her space, but he won't look at her, because the bastard knows there's a fine line between what we want and what we expect. They refuse to look at one another, smile disingenuously at everyone else (They always smile disingenuously. No one even notices.),

It's a game of chicken, and while on principle Lydia doesn't play ridiculously childish games, she also doesn't lose.

She has a stroke of brilliance the third round and stops hiding the tilt of her chin. She cocks her head, and pauses just the way he does, and smiles his smile, and she does it for everyone but him.

Especially for Jackson. (Remember what she said about using people?)

He knows exactly what game she's playing, and that's why it's so satisfying watching his smirk get a little tighter every time. Just because he's aware doesn't mean he's unaffected.

The fifth time they play this game, he follows her into the kitchen when she goes for a drink, his eyes dark and hungry and something like satisfaction flashing through him when he hears her heartbeat skip.

He doesn't even bother holding up their flimsy pretense, stands so close to her back she can feel the fabric of their clothes rubbing. Her scalp tingles from the gentle tug where her hair catches on his shirt and his breath ghosts across her temple.

(She's dreamt about this, too.)

"Enjoying yourself?"

"As it so happens, yes." She spins around, her eyes catching on his lips before they find his eyes. It overwhelms her for a moment, his closeness, and her breath comes faster. She takes care to let every bit of venom she can muster drip from her next words. "I haven't bothered you, have I?" (It suddenly feels a lot less like she's won something by provoking this.)

"Mm." The sound rumbles in his chest, the vibrations dancing across her skin and down through her spine. From the look on his face, he knows exactly what that feeling does to her. Bastard. She doesn't even realize he's leaning into her space until her lower back hits the counter top, his hands coming to rest on either side of her.

The thrill of fear is neck and neck with the heat pooling in her sex. She wants to destroy him. She wants to devour him. She wants to strip the flesh from his bones and lose herself in his skin like he lost himself in hers.

She _hates_ him.

(She wants him more.)

When everyone leaves, she lets Jackson think she has a ride with Allison, and lets Allison think she has a ride with Stiles, and lets Stiles do whatever the hell it is he does all on his own. Derek's too busy eye-fucking him to notice when Peter's hand ghosts across her side, fingers tracing the scars he gave her. That shouldn't make her breath come short or her heart race. She shouldn't crave the look in his eyes. She definitely shouldn't leave with him, but she does.

Since she's going to hell, she does it thoroughly. Lydia Martin doesn't do half measures. Neither does Peter Hale, which suits her just fine. There are no safe words, and no questions, and no holds barred. She digs her nails into his back and bites into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin while he fucks her so hard she has trouble walking the next day.

Jackson only shakes his head, looking somehow disgusted and resigned, but he's not surprised.

She practices the expression in the mirror a few times later, just to feel what it's like inside it. It leaves her more empty than before.

Part of her thinks that's why she can't make herself stop, because at least with Peter, there's something. That's better than nothing, right?

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.

.

After the first few times, she wants something more than just his blood. That's too shallow a pain. It doesn't satisfy, so in the heat of the moment, sweat slick between them and aftershocks of her orgasm causing her to arch into him, she sighs and breathes, "I hate you," against his skin.

It's like she hit him with a cattle prod, the shudder that runs through him, and a positively frightening sound escapes his chest. He comes so hard he can only lay there gasping, his face pressed into the crook of her neck and for a moment she's afraid she really did break him. (She can be foolish, sometimes.)

He kisses her slow and languid and it's so at odds with every other time they've fucked that she relaxes into it, rests a hand on his jaw when he cups her neck. He says, " How much? How much do you hate me?"

If it bothers him that she doesn't answer, he hides it, his hand palming the scars on her side, pressing on them like he's trying to hold something in. It's the first time she falls asleep beside him, and she knows it speaks to her situation that she's more concerned with the fact that she didn't have an answer because she knows he won't let it go.

.

.

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If she knew what door she'd opened that night, she probably still would have said it, but with a far greater appreciation of what she was inviting.

He's cock deep in between her thighs, pressing her into the mattress. All his weight is on her, trapping her more surely than any restraint. She's gasping a little, her body fighting for air it can't get. He's not heavy enough to make her pass out, but just heavy enough that every breath is a struggle.

"Look at you, all grown up. Just like mommy." The worst part isn't the claustrophobic heat of his body, it's the way he speaks, like he's whispering sweet nothings. "All those nights when you pretended to be asleep, but you weren't. Sneaky little thing, listening to them fight. Listen to them _fuck_. Is that why it gets you off, hm?"

She fights back in the only way she can, fisting a hand in his hair and pulling. Then she hits below the belt. (She knows better than to fight fair.) She says, "Peter." Just his name. But it's not the name that does the damage, it's the way she says it, breathy and half-choked. It's the way his sister called his name while she was burning alive.

That voice haunts his dreams, still, always. (She knows because it haunts her, too.)

She kisses him hard enough to draw blood, rolls her hips the way she knows makes his knees go weak. This is how she likes it best, when they've both cut deep enough that there are no walls between them anymore. When they can touch each other tenderly, lick each others wounds.

(They can only be vulnerable when they have no other choice.)

And when she breathes his name later, clenching around him, pulling him after her into the abyss, he makes a broken little sound that's just for her. She swallows it down, wants it inside, forever, where no one can touch it. She's selfish with his pain.

Because it's easy to forget. Sometimes she feels like she's the only one who remembers that Peter Hale was a man once, too, before he was a monster. So she swallows his cry and keeps it safe, tucked away in her heart of hearts to look at, and ponder, and to remind herself that hate isn't all she has for him.

(She's not the only one who can't stay away.)


End file.
